MAKING ANIMALS ALCOHOLIC: SHIFTING LABORATORY MODELS OF ADDICTION

The use of animals as experimental organisms has been critical to the development of addiction research from the nineteenth century. They have been used as a means of generating reliable data regarding the processes of addiction that was not available from the study of human subjects. Their use, however, has been far from straightforward. Through focusing on the study of alcoholism, where the nonhuman animal proved a most reluctant collaborator, this paper will analyze the ways in which scientists attempted to deal with its determined sobriety and account for their consistent failure to replicate the volitional consumption of ethanol to the point of physical dependency. In doing so, we will see how the animal model not only served as a means of interrogating a complex pathology, but also came to embody competing definitions of alcoholism as a disease process, and alternative visions for the very structure and purpose of a research field.     

Not Cricket? Ethics,Rhetoric and Sporting Boycotts

abstract   Using as a background the ongoing crisis afflicting the international cricket scene over whether or not to boycott Zimbabwe, this paper seeks to explore the moral complexities surrounding the case of the sporting boycott in general as a response to morally odious regimes. Rather than attempting to provide some easy formula by which to determine justifiable from unjustifiable boycotts, we take as our starting point many of the arguments raised in the national press and explore and develop these arguments in order to shed light on the fundamental problems underlying the use of sporting boycotts as moral tools. The paper thus aims to show the inadequacy of the standard responses on both sides of the fence and, hopefully, clears the ground for future, more informed approaches to the issue.     

PRINCIPIA NONSENSICA

(Concerning the thing of which I am most in earnest] I certainly have composed no work in regard to it, nor shall I ever do so in the future, for there is no way of putting it in words like other studies. (Plato, Seventh Letter 341c)     

A Program to Meet the Emotional and Social Needs of Gifted and Talented Adolescents

To address the affective needs of gifted and talented adolescents, a 3-day group dynamics workshop became part of a 3-week summer institute. The workshop contained activities designed to increase self-esteem, group cohesion, and problem-solving skills to prepare the adolescents for completing communication projects with retirees.